Extra police requested for Election Day in Norwalk

Published 7:12 pm, Monday, September 19, 2016

NORWALK — Expecting high voter turnout in the nation’s 2016 presidential election, the Norwalk Registrar of Voters Office wants police officers at all of the city’s polling places on Election Day, Nov. 8.

“We will have police at every polling station,” said Karen Doyle Lyons, Norwalk’s Republican registrar of voters. In past elections “we had them at six out of 12 but this year we felt for traffic control and security we’re going to have them at all.”

Doyle Lyons said the registrars’ office has $6,000 within its approved budget for police presence on Election Day and has requested an additional $4,000 to cover the remaining polling sites. She said the funding request would go before the city’s Board of Estimate and Taxation for consideration.

Norwalk Police Chief Thomas E. Kulhawik said he was awaiting the additional staffing request and would review it.

Standing in her office Monday, Doyle Lyons pointed at boxes filled with new voters registrations.

As of Sept. 13, Norwalk had 45,086 registered voters, including 17,910 unaffiliated voters, 17,255 Democrats, 9,006 Republicans, 829 Independents and 86 belonging to smaller parties, according to the Registrar of Voters Office.

“The intensity of this dislike is not normal — it’s visceral,” Rose said. “I think that will bring people to the polls because they want to vote against one of these two people.”

Norwalk voter turnout was 75.1 percent in the 2008 presidential election, 74.4 percent in the 2004 presidential election and nearly 80 percent in the 2000 presidential election, according to the Norwalk Registrar of Voters Office.